Muslim Palestinians murder each other and only Israel saves them – Israel provides sanctuary for fleeing Palestinians from their own ‘un-civil war ‘ [Arab on Arab crime]

Muslim Palestinians murder each other and only Israel saves them – Israel provides sanctuary for fleeing Palestinians from their own ‘un-civil war ‘ [Arab on Arab crime]

Israel provides sanctuary for fleeing Palestinians
THE international Left and our own flag-waving supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and every other Palestinian terror organisation, look pretty stupid today as Israel provides sanctuary for Palestinians fleeing home-grown terror directed against each other.

The bloody infighting between rival terrorist gangs has long been a feature of the fractured Arab bloc but the reality that Israel does provide the only island of security in the middle of the carnage has never been so starkly illustrated. More than 180 members of the Hiles (or Hilles) clan which is allied to the former Fatah government have been sheltered by Israel in an astonishing act of mercy as they fled killers from the radical Islamic resistance movement Hamas. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak made the decision to allow the young men to enter Israel on humanitarian grounds after receiving a plea for help from Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Egyptian Government.

Those fleeing Hamas accused the group of attempting to wipe out all supporters of Fatah from the Gaza Strip in an act of “political cleansing”. Mohammed Darawshe, a director of the Abraham Fund which works toward increasing opportunities for co-existence and equality between Arabs and Jews in Israel, said the street slaughter which has left at least nine – including a six-year-old girl – dead, was one of the blackest pages in Palestinian history. “When you have Palestinians being forced to flee by other Palestinians, it is a tragedy,” he said. “This is the behaviour of a brutal dictatorship, not a political party working in the interests of its people.”

On the border, Israeli guards prepared stretchers to carry wounded Palestinian refugees as ambulances took more than 100 wounded to hospital. Hamas gunmen fired upon those fleeing, wounding at least 22, as the Israelis opened their border gates. Fatah, the power-base of the late and unlamented corrupt leader, and father of international terrorism, Yasser Arafat, lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas after a series of bloody battles a year ago. Hamas has claimed that the Hiles clan has worked in concert with Fatah, and that members may have been responsible for an explosion last week that killed five men and the young girl. Academic from Hebrew University Gabriel Motzkin said the latest violence had ended any hope of success in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. “It is beyond doubt that there are now two separate Palestinian territories, so who does Israel deal with? Mahmoud Abbas does not speak for Palestinians in Gaza. And Hamas is not interested in any negotiations with Israel at all.

This civil war makes a permanent solution impossible to negotiate.” The Palestinian versus Palestinian battle is, in fact, a microcosm of the central issue in the long-running Middle East cancer. Ever since the Arab nations surrounding Israel encouraged Palestinians to flee the nascent state of Israel 60 years ago, they have refused to permit them to settle and integrate into their populations, preferring to see a United Nations-supported permanent “refugee” state of Palestine fester on the Israel border and remain a canker in international relations. While Israel has maintained a non-discrimination policy toward Arabs and people of all faiths within its borders, the Arab nations have been responsible for persecuting Christians, Jews and others who do not follow Islam. Coptic Christians are under enormous pressure in Egypt, Christians are increasingly coming under fire in Iraq, and Saudi Arabia maintains its laws prohibiting the distribution of the Bible.

The contrast with Israel’s tolerant approach to human rights could not be greater. The Palestinian Authority continues to pump out its virulent anti-Semitic messages and even stoops to incorporating instructions in hatred in its children’s programming, with vicious slurs against Jews and Israelis tailored for the young audience through the use of cartoon figures. The Palestinian Authority will attempt to block the sight of Palestinians seeking and finding refuge in Israel from fellow Palestinians but news will filter through via the internet and international broadcasts. It will create confusion in the minds of many who have been taught since birth that Israel was the cause of the Palestinians’ woes, not their salvation.

The fact that mercy lies on one side of the border and not the other will be a hard lesson to swallow for Palestinians fed on a steady diet of anti-Semitic propaganda. But it is timely, as research shows there is a rise in anti-Semitism across much of Europe and the US. Although the Israeli sanctuary may only be temporary, and though the Gazans may eventually be asked to resettle in Egypt or even in Ramallah on the West Bank, there is the possibility that they may have learned a simple lesson. That they have been lied to about Israeli intentions toward Palestinians is obvious, but whether they will have also learned that their unconditional sanctuary came courtesy from those they were taught were their most bitter enemies, is another.